Dinosaur Jr are back in Australia to celebrate 30 years since the release of seminal album Where You Been. I was lucky enough to catch them at the Enmore Theatre in Sydney supported by Melbourne’s Stepmother.

All photos by @robmezzphoto. Thanks to Century venues and Frontier touring.

Stepmother

The room was already quickly filling when Stepmother sauntered on stage, lined up a decent supply of VB tinnies, and let loose.

With a couple of guitars and drums there was no mucking about – straight into some heavy rock. Think of the Detroit guitar sound salted with plenty of Radio Birdman influences interjected with plenty of screaming guitar solos.

With a rounded high energy noise, you didn’t miss the bass lines, there was even some slick surf tunes to toss the set around a little.

Check them out here.

Dinosaur Jr

By the time it was Dinosaur Jr’s turn to step up to the mic, the Enmore was packed to the gills. Old fans, new fans and everything in between. The place was a sea of Dinosaur Jr t-shirts from every era.

The play list started with Out There, the first song off the 1993 Where You Been album followed by the rest of the album in order. J Mascis was guitar swapping pretty much after every song with very little banter, keeping the chat down to one syllable at a time and guarding his massive rig of Marshall amps. Lou Barlow was like a whirling dervish on bass, spinning and prowling the stage like a big haired rag doll; and Murph just kept it real on drums, not missing a beat.

When they reached the end of I Ain’t Sayin’, the last song of the album, there was audible relief from J with an exclamation of “well, that’s it”. They then started on a few choice favourites to round out the set and further delight the crowd with a wash of distorted and fuzzy lo-fi guitar goodness.

There was some guitar teasing as J prepped for each song to come, but the longest little tease came for Feel the Pain, with an extended intro and super fuzzy bass lines until the song start – and then the crowd went apeshit. It’s always heartening to see that a band that’s been around for more than 30 years can still generate a healthy multi-generational mosh pit complete with arms, legs and bodies flying through the air.

The encore was just as monumental to round out the night with Freak Scene and their version of The Cure’s Just like Heaven that had the paint blistering off the walls.

On the walk out of the venue, all I could see were beaming faces – says it all really